This week we started our New Fall GameSPEED program, and I wanted to share a few videos just to help the players understand what it is that we are looking for in some of the drills. First understand that this is a 12 week program, and it is impossible to work every aspect of the game in 12 sessions. So we wanted to focus our attention on those aspects that were weaker in the GameSPEED Test we took last week. Each session will start off with a focus on the specific movement pattern of the day, then we will integrate that into some reactive, game specific agility patterns. Next we blend in a ball to make the situation feel a little more game like. We will then move inside for some specific strength and conditioning activities that complement the skills they are working on the field.

Week 1Focus: Off Ball Agility / Change of Direction Footwork

This week will will be installing mostly footwork drills. We will blend in a little passing, but the primary focus is footwork and movement skills. As the weeks progress we will be using these as warm ups for our more advanced progressions.

Movement Skill: Change of Direction Footwork

Our progression for this starts with simple shuffling drills. The focus is to get the player to feel strong and confident using their “Inside Leg” when changing direction (you will see this in the video below) and it is explained in detail in an older post on this site: Click HERE to read more. We then progress to a shuffle to run pattern, with a focus on getting into positions that we can sprint out of quickly and efficiently, with no wasted steps. We finish up with a run to run pattern that focuses on the quick repositioning fo the inside let and an aggressive drive out of this athletic position as seen in the video below.

Applied Movement: Diamond Agility & Reactive Passing Agility

As you can see in the video below, we are now integrating the same footwork patterns into our diamond agility patterns, from which will will begin to integrate our speed of thought, reactive agility and quick passing drills over the next few weeks. It is essential that all players in the group figure out the footwork over the next few weeks so that we can progress into more aggressive drills.

From here we will move into our integrated activity that blends speed of thought and skill into the drills.

Integrated Activity: Diamond Passing

In this drill we blend the footwork from the movement pattern section with the passing and specific pattern drills from the applied section. In the video below you will see our players reacting to the pass, checking back to the ball, and incorporating the footwork pattern to create a soccer specific speed based drill.

I agree, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. We have built in a number of these progressions that get into defensive vision, footwork and anticipatory skills, attacking speed and vision, 5 player rhythmic passing and off ball runs that simulate 3v3 fitness in a more “controlled” fitness based environment, etc.

We are testing these protocols and programming options with 200-300 players in U10 – U18 age groups, and comparing them against a control group of 1200 players who only participate in traditional practices with no “extra” work. I will report on the details as we collect more data.

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